Toma Hepliani
The Toma Hepliani (Book of Heplia) is the central book of scripture in Heplianism. Written by Raynar Silver, it chronicles Raynar's visions of Heplia and explains the foundational tenets of the Heplian religion. Content of the Toma The book goes through Raynar Silver's visions in a roughly chronological order. In the earliest visions, Raynar reports seeing a large wheel, which was tended and maintained by an immense white figure. Raynar was able to get closer to the wheel in later visions, and he describes the wheel as having "hundreds of hundreds" of faces upon its surface; in other visions, he could see the figure more clearly, as a humanoid dressed in a robe and having a wholly featureless face. After describing this series of visions, Raynar reports that the figure eventually began to speak to him. She explained to him that the wheel was used to control the fortunes of humanity; the higher a person was on the wheel, the better their luck. People largely progressed around the wheel in a cyclical fashion, going through periods of good and bad fortune, but the trajectory of their cycle could be affected by behavior. Doing good deeds would push someone's wheel upward, while bad deeds would drag the wheel down; these in turn would lead someone to have disproportionate amounts of either good or bad luck. It was also possible for someone of exceptional virtue or vice to go beyond the upper or lower bound of the wheel; someone who reached either extreme would transcend physical existence, being either brought to the paradisiacal "upper garden" or to a "frozen pit" in which extreme offenders were punished. Having explained this system to Raynar, the figure eventually introduced herself as Heplia. Heplia stated that her role was to preserve the wheel, balancing out the luck of humanity to ensure its continual cycling; however, she also sought to bring humans into the upper garden with her. To accomplish this, Heplia used her position to expand and enlarge the upper portion of the wheel; this allowed her adherents to have better fortune, and to stay in the upper portion for longer durations. Thus, Raynar asserted, faith in Heplia was necessary to maximize one's luck and improve one's chances of reaching the upper garden. In his later visions, Raynar began asking questions of Heplia, attempting to learn how best to improve his fortune and approach the upper garden. Heplia emphasized charity as the foremost tenet of fortune control: by providing material or emotional support to those at the low points of their cycles, one would display an understanding of the transience of luck, and be duly rewarded. The promulgation of Heplianism was also described as a form of charity, since it allowed a greater population to understand the wheel and correspondingly improve their own fortunes. These passages were subsequently used as the basis for most Heplian missionary efforts. Composition and publication Raynar Silver was initially illiterate when he had his first visions; however, he quickly displayed a desire to put his visions into writing, and so his family hired a tutor to teach Raynar to read and write. As his visions continued through the 60s, Raynar repeatedly wrote and revised the Toma, seeking to include and explain everything he saw. Stylistically, the Toma increases in complexity and in usage of imagery over its duration; this is attributed to several causes. Firstly, the more detailed descriptions largely correspond to more recent visions, which Raynar could have written down immediately after recovering from them. However, as the writing process went on, Raynar became a more skilled and confident writer, leading him to attempt a more ambitious project. In 68, Raynar began having visions of Heplia repeating this phrase, "Tell them." This led him to publish the Toma Hepliani, which he began promoting publicly. The Toma did not immediately attract much attention from the public, although it caught the attention of the scholarly community, which was divided about the plausibility of Raynar's reports. Because of these debates, King Yorick I of Dorio purchased a copy of the Toma. He was not personally interested in Heplianism, describing Raynar as a "dry and rambling story-teller," but when Yorick showed the Toma to his son Albus, Albus was immediately fascinated by it. Category:Documents